IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2021 - 28

Opinion

*	 Reluctance to provide open source licensing,
and unavailability of public datasets to facilitate
AI research and development in LMIC.
*	 Poor adaptability of AI to the needs of specific
cultures/countries/regions.
*	 Lack of active participation of populations
expected to use technology.
*	 Insufficient and unrepresentative data production, biasing AI machine learning.
*	 Lack of organizational and business models for
adapting technologies to the specific needs of
different regions.
*	 Lack of political will to allow people to have
access to technological resources.
*	 Existence of oligopolies that hinder new technological development.
To offset some of these structural obstacles, the
committee recommended numerous actions, in
both the SDG content and process, which could
contribute toward increasing equal availability of AI
benefits to people in the LMIC, and reduce the risks
of marginalization.
In terms of SDG content toward achieving the goals,
this EAD Committee recommended that researchers,
AI designers, companies, and policy makers:
*	 Identify, experiment with, document, and promote AI technologies relevant to the SDGs (i.e.,
Big data for development relevant to agriculture,
medical telediagnosis; global information system
(GIS) for public service planning; drone delivery
of critical health inputs).
*	 Develop and apply ethical standards for the
collection, use, sharing, and disposal of data in
fragile social, economic, and political settings
(where privacy breaches can lead to death at
the hands of competing militias or oppressive
governments).
*	 Cost and propose strategies for universal public
provision of internet services, to diminish the
gap between the HIC's and LMIC's access to AI's
potential benefit.
*	 Support civil society organizations advocating
for marginalized groups' equal AI benefit and
data protection.
*	 Integrate the SDGs into the core of private sector
business strategies and adding SDG indicators to
companies' key performance indicators, going
beyond corporate social responsibility (CSR).

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In terms of the process for AI-DDD that would
help advance equal access in LMIC, the Committee
recommended some practical steps that various
stakeholders and constituencies could take:
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Support LMIC in the development of their own AI
strategies/applications, and in preventing braindrain, through retention or return of their own AI
talent.
Deploy A/IS to detect fraud and corruption, to
increase the transparency of power structures,
to contribute to a favorable investment, governance, and innovation environment.
Encourage global standardization and open
source AI software.
Develop public databases (protecting personal
data), from which LMIC researchers can develop/
train locally appropriate applications.
Provide fora where LMIC stakeholders can shape
AI applications to fit their own cultural, economic, and social environments.
Form collaborative networks between HIC and
LMIC developers, including supporting the latter to
attend global knowledge-exchange conferences.
Promote research and support deployment of
mobile, lightweight applications readily available in LMIC.
Prioritize development of AI infrastructure in
international assistance as a necessary precondition to " leaving no-one behind " in AI's benefit to
humanity through the SDGs.
Support research on adaptation of AI development methods to scarce data environments;
recognizing that existing methods risk bias and
discrimination in low data-density environments.
Strengthen laws for and practice of data
protection.

The " A/IS for Sustainable Development " chapter of the EAD also includes individual sections on
A/IS and: Employment, Education, and Humanitarian Action. Each of these sections analyses issues
and makes practical recommendations that aim to
ensure that AI not only leaves no-one behind but
creates conditions where everyone, everywhere,
has the opportunity to benefit equally from AI's profound transformation of society.
There remain many challenges to ensuring equal
availability to AI's benefit to humanity; IEEE's Sustainable Development Committee made a start on

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IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2021

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